Nine weeks down

This week marks our ninth week of the school year, and things are going pretty well. I thought I'd give a little school update on each of the children.

Matthew is doing very well and just soaks up any info I give him. He's loving his history lessons (that's my boy!) and has enjoyed all of the read-alouds we've done so far. He likes poetry about as much as I do, so it's been fun making fun of some of our poems together. Spelling is usually no problem for him, although he did have his first bad spelling test today. I pointed out to him that he didn't look over his words before taking the test and he agreed that he should probably do that in the future. Some of the language arts info is a little over his head, but we work through it together. Writing assignments are always fun with him since he has such an active imagination. He's enjoying reading chapter books and has found they are not as scary as he originally thought. And he is enjoying his math, although we did hit the first challenging lesson this week. I explained to him that I don't care about him getting the answers right so much as understanding the material. He felt better after my little pep talk. Poor guy, bad spelling test and a bad math test in the same day. Good thing I made cookies :) Overall though, he's doing a splendid job.

Ben has gone from a school hater to a school lover. I really enjoy Core 4/5 and think it's my favorite one so far. I've heard from other parents that they hate the choppiness of the program, but I enjoy reading different stories every day. Ben loves it as well. His handwriting is progressing well. I've decided to take an unschooling approach to handwriting with the boys. I know it may not be as neat as other children their age, especially Matthew, but they enjoy improving on it on their own. So I'm not worried. Ben has picked it up rather quickly. He's also doing extremely well with his reading. We are on lesson 45 of the 100 lessons reading book and he is doing a phonics series called Get Ready for the Code, a primer to the Explode the Code books that Matthew is working through. The combination of the two has been an excellent choice for Ben, as he is reading better and faster than Matthew. We are on track to finish the 100 lesson book by Christmas, which is Ben's goal. He actually WANTS to do a whole lesson every day! He is also in the Primer math book of Math-U-See and finally hit something that has been challenging for him. He's doing well, considering his age, and I just love hearing, "Can I do more math, Mom?" at the end of each school hour.

Schooling them separately has not been easy on me schedule-wise, but it's been the best choice. I'm really learn Ben and his learning style and I love spending individual time with the boys. I think they love it as well! We do occasionally double up on the lessons, especially on Tuesdays when I have Bible study. I do Ben's regular school time and have Matthew work on his phonics and math at the same time.

As for Miss Anna, she is picking up things right and left. She knows all of her colors and most of her shapes, which is pretty surprising since I haven't really worked on them with her at all. She's just picked it up from the family. She even knows a few letters and their sounds. I haven't made up her skill chart for the year yet b/c I'm still trying to figure out what she needs to learn that she hasn't yet! She loves reading books and soaks up any time I can be with her and just read to her.

So we're really enjoying our school year. I look forward to working with the kids each day...far more than I do the housework. I just love the quote: "If the house is a mess at the end of the day, you had a good day homeschooling. If your house is spotless, you had a bad day homeschooling." Let's say we usually have a good day homeschooling!